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Fetus ‘bodyguard’ cells may help prevent miscarriages

By Andy Coghlan

IT’S an enduring biological mystery – how a fetus survives in the uterus without being attacked by the mother’s immune system. Now it seems that in mice at least, a cellular “reception committee” gathers to welcome and guard each potential fetus that might be created during the menstrual cycle. The finding could reveal new ways of combating miscarriage in women.

Alexander Betz and Marinos Kallikourdis of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, discovered the process by exploring links between certain chemical shifts and menstrual cycles in mice. They knew the wombs of pregnant mice are especially …